Last night, the Genre Reading Group met for one of our
biannual Salon Discussions. There are no
assigned topics at Salon so we spent an enjoyable couple of hours talking about
our favorite recent reads/views/listens.
War/Combat fan fiction films curated by a group member
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZJCprt9ByAROABxVeutaqNcdp6vrzwPt
Stranded in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, a man sets in
motion an unlikely plan to protect the precious cargo he carries: his infant daughter. Recently remade into a feature length film starring Martin Freeman.
The
Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age
novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and
satisfying as a mate in four. Now
an acclaimed Netflix series.
The
7½ deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
For fans of Claire
North, and Kate
Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a
breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find
a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one
are quite what they seem.
Quantum
Leap (tv show)
A time-travel experiment that went wrong sends physicist Sam
Beckett back in time, where he assumes other people's identities and helps to
resolve the crises of his new hosts. He's assisted in his adventures by Al
Calavicci, also known as `The Observer,' who has the ability to appear in
holographic form.
How
To Stop Time by Matt Haig
How to Stop Time tells a love story across
the ages—and for the ages—about a man lost in time, the woman who could save
him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a
bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the
inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find
happiness. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Breath:
The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent
cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns
the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic
biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.
Mexican
Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat.
And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the
author of Gods
of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on
classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s
Mexico. In development as a Hulu
Original limited series produced by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
Plum
Spooky by Janet Evanovich
Turn on all the lights and check under your bed. Things are
about to get spooky in Trenton, New Jersey.
According to legend, the Jersey Devil prowls the Pine Barrens and soars
above the treetops in the dark of night. As eerie as this might seem, there are
things in the Barrens that are even more frightening and dangerous. And there
are monkeys. Lots of monkeys. Diesel and Plum hunt down Munch and Grimoire,
following them into the Barrens, surviving cranberry bogs, the Jersey Devil, a
hair-raising experience, sand in their underwear, and, of course . . . monkeys.
The
Order by Daniel Silva
Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into Venice for a much-needed
holiday with his wife and two young children. But when Pope Paul VII dies
suddenly, Gabriel is summoned to Rome by the Holy Father’s loyal private
secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati. A billion Catholic faithful have been told
that the pope died of a heart attack. Donati, however, has two good reasons to
suspect his master was murdered. The Swiss Guard who was standing watch outside
the papal apartments the night of the pope’s death is missing. So, too, is the
letter the Holy Father was writing during the final hours of his life. A letter
that was addressed to Gabriel: While researching in the Vatican Secret
Archives, I came upon a most remarkable book …
The
Borgias (tv show)
An historical drama about the infamous Renaissance-era
Italian family, one of whom became head of the Catholic Church as Pope
Alexander VI. His son Cesare was the subject of Machiavelli's classic "The
Prince."
Dear
Edward by Ann Napolitano
One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his
beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in
Newark headed for Los Angeles. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes.
Edward is the sole survivor. Edward’s
story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in
a world without his family. When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the
strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe
again? How do you find meaning in your life? Dear Edward is at once
a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an
unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the
ways a broken heart learns to love again.
Before
We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life
scandals—in which Georgia
Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold
poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting,
wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths
we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
Before
and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the
Tennessee Children’s Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate
The compelling, poignant true stories of victims of a
notorious adoption scandal—some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate’s
bestselling novel Before We Were Yours and were reunited with
birth family members as a result of its wide reach.
This is How you Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
From award-winning authors Amal
El-Mohtar and Max
Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space
about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to
ensure their future.
News
of the World by Paulette Jiles
In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news
reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in
this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical
fiction from the author of Enemy
Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor,
and trust.
The
Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and
Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders
In this fascinating book, Judith Flanders retells the
gruesome stories of many different types of murder―both famous and obscure―from
the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper to the tragedies of
the murdered Marr family in London's East End; Burke and Hare and their
bodysnatching business in Edinburgh; and Greenacre, who transported his
dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus. With an irresistible cast of
swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know, The
Invention of Murder is both a gripping tale of crime and punishment, and
history at its most readable.
The
Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by Corinne May Botz (not available within
the Jefferson County Library system)
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death offers
readers an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a master criminal
investigator. Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy grandmother, founded the
Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936 and was later appointed captain
in the New Hampshire police. In the 1940s and 1950s she built dollhouse crime
scenes based on real cases in order to train detectives to assess visual
evidence. Still used in forensic training today, the eighteen Nutshell
dioramas, on a scale of 1:12, display an astounding level of detail: pencils
write, window shades move, whistles blow, and clues to the crimes are revealed
to those who study the scenes carefully.
18
Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of
Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb
A captivating blend of history, women in science, and true
crime, 18 Tiny Deaths tells the story of how one woman changed the
face of forensics forever.
The
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Oxford Time Travel series)
For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the
deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations
against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a
woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it
meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous
location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past
and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to
rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age
herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's
darkest hours.
To
Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling
between the 21st century and the 1940s searching for a Victorian atrocity
called the bishop's bird stump. It’s part of a project to restore the famed
Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years
earlier. But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler,
inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump back to
the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project
but to prevent altering history itself.
The
Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the
Blitz by Erik Larson
The author of The
Devil in the White City and Dead
Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and
London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a
time of unprecedented crisis
A
Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence
Lost by Frye Gaillard
Frye Gaillard has given us a deeply personal history,
bringing his keen storyteller’s eye to this pivotal time in American life. He
explores the competing story arcs of tragedy and hope through the political and
social movements of the times but he also examines the cultural manifestations
of change. “There are many different ways to remember the sixties,” Gaillard writes,
“and this is mine.”
Nobody
Knows How It Got This Good by Amos Jasper Wright IV
Wright's debut collection of short stories was awarded the
2018 Tartt First Fiction Award. Drawing heavily on the author's experiences
growing up in Alabama, the stories explore themes of racial
injustice, class, the Civil Rights Movement, environmental catastrophe,
imprisonment, suburbanization, and the perennial themes of love, life and loss.
Blood:
A Memoir by Allison Moorer (eaudio
on Libby)
Blood delves into the meaning of inheritance and
destiny, shame and trauma -- and how it is possible to carve out a safe place
in the world despite it all. With a foreword by Allison's sister, Grammy winner
Shelby Lynne, Blood reads like an intimate journal: vivid,
haunting, and ultimately life-affirming.
Willpower:
Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister
One of the world's most esteemed and influential
psychologists, Roy F. Baumeister, teams with New York Times science
writer John Tierney to reveal the secrets of self-control and how to master it.
A regular GRG attendee (pre-COVID) visited the library this
afternoon and offered this one:
Hours
(feature film)
A new father (Paul Walker) must remain behind and try to
keep his prematurely born daughter alive after Hurricane Katrina knocks out the
power in their New Orleans hospital.
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